Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Scaling down its ColdFire microcontrollers allowed Freescale to improve performance and add features while also lowering its price. Look for mobile devices to get extended battery life and touch-to-awaken convenience by switching to Freescale's ColdFire+ microcontrollers. R.C.J.

Freescale Semiconductor has capitalized on its unique thin-film storage (TFS) technology for the 90-nanometer node, scaling down its ColdFire processors to the 90-nm node, also—over a four-fold shrink to just five millimeters square for under a dollar. The new ColdFire+ family includes 40 new 32-bit MCUs with ultra-low power requirements for long battery life, integrated analog converters, touch pad sensing, display support, cyber security accelerators and TFS that can be configured as either flash or EEPROM. FlexMemory is nonvolatile storage based on Freescale's nanocrystalline thin-film floating gate memory cells that enable write speeds as fast as 100 microseconds and up to 4.4 million write/erase cycles over the full voltage range of 1.71-to-3.6 volts. Freescale also claims its power consumption is the lowest in the industry at 150 microAmps per MHz, with stop currents under 500 nanoamps and wake-up times under four microseconds from 10 different low-power modes. When the touchpad sensing capability is used, the ColdFire+ processors can be awakened with a touch even from the lowest power modes in just four microseconds, which appears instantaneous to mobile device users yet extends battery life.Full Text: http://bit.ly/NextGenLog-bylH

By R. Colin Johnson

Lastest Book:

Cognitive computers—cognizers—aim to instill human-like intelligence into our smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices using microchips that emulate the human brain. Dubbed the “Future of Computing” by the NYTimes, one of the “Best Innovation Moments of 2011” by the Washington Post and one of “10 World Changing Ideas” in a Scientific American cover story “A Computer Chip that Thinks” this book reveals how neuroscience and computer science are merging in a new era of intelligent machines light-years beyond Apple's Siri, IBM's Watson.

About the Author:

Next-generation electronics and technology news stories published non-stop for 20+ years, R. Colin Johnson's unique perspective has prompted coverage of his articles in a diverse range of major media outlets--from the ultra-liberal National Public Radio (NPR) to the ultra-conservative Rush Limbaugh Show.